The three Schuyler sisters form a key part of the Hamilton musical, which is now streaming as a movie on Disney+, but creator Lin-Manuel Miranda actually cut other Schuyler siblings – including some brothers – from the story. Angelica (René Elise Goldsberry), Eliza Phillipa Soo), and Peggy (Jasmine Cephas Jones) are introduced fairly early in Hamilton, making their entrance during their own titular song, “The Schuyler Sisters”, before quickly catching the eye of Alexander Hamilton (Miranda) himself.
Eliza goes on to marry Alexander, with the pair having children. At the same time, there’s a constant question raised of the attraction between Alexander Hamilton and Angelica, though nothing actually happens in the musical (nor, seemingly, in real life). And while Peggy is given slightly shorter shrift, not appearing in Act 2 of Hamilton, it’s also noted that she confides in him. Alexander doesn’t have any family, and so the Schuyler sisters become that for him. But while the musical notes that it’s just the three of them, and Angelica even sings in “Satisfied” that “My father had no sons…”, there were more members of the family not mentioned.
While the musical only focuses on Angelica, Peggy, and Eliza, their father, Philip (who is also referenced a few times in Hamilton), and mother, Catherine, had a total of 15 children together. Sadly, many of these didn’t survive beyond their infant years, including: two different children called John Bradstreet; Cornelia; Cortlandt; and a set of triplets. However, as well as those mentioned in the musical, there were another five Schuyler children who did survive into adulthood; two sisters, Cornelia and Catherine, and three brothers, Philip Jeremiah, Rensselaer, and another John Bradstreet.
![Hamilton: The Other Schuyler Sisters (& BROTHERS) Lin-Manuel Miranda Left Out](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Hamilton-The-Schuyler-Sisters.jpg)
Although they were cut, the other siblings do have some interesting stories of their own. Philip followed his father into politics, working for the New York Assembly before being elected to the House of Representatives, where he served for two years from 1817-1819. John, meanwhile, married Elizabeth Van Rensselaer, the sister of Peggy’s husband, Stephen. And Cornelia, when her parents disapproved of her choice of husband, reportedly jumped out of a two-story window and eloped with him. Of the Schuyler sisters and brothers who did survive into adulthood, John Bradstreet was the first to pass away, in 1795, but all were alive in the time period Hamilton covers. Catherine was the last surviving of Philip Schuyler’s children, passing away in 1857, just three years after Eliza did.
Angelica, Eliza, and Peggy are the three oldest Schuyler children (Peggy, the youngest of the three, was born in 1758; the Schuylers’ next child who survived into adulthood was born in 1765) but that’s not the reason they’re the only ones mentioned by the musical. Instead, that was a narrative choice from Miranda, who really wanted to focus on Angelica’s character. In Hamilton: The Revolution (via Google Books), he writes: “Okay, so Philip Schuyler had loads of sons. I conveniently forgot that while I was writing this in service of a larger point: Angelica is a world-class intellect in a world that does not allow her to flex it.”
By making Angelica the eldest daughter of a man with no sons, it adds another layer to her relationship with Alexander; here, she has a duty to her family to marry someone wealthy, meaning she couldn’t possibly be with Alexander. While letters between the two do suggest an attraction, this is some dramatic licence on behalf of Miranda, but it works in the story to make a more complicated relationship between Angelica, Eliza, and Alexander, and add a greater sense of emotion to her arc in Hamilton. Miranda made several changes to the story – Peggy’s story itself is greatly reduced, but she and Alexander did keep up their own correspondence until her death in 1801 – while Angelica was actually already married when she met Alexander, but the musical blends facts with fiction to create something even more exciting.